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last week, anti-counterfeiting bloggers "bounty hunter ashes" and "da wa" said they purchased sweet potato vermicelli at the live broadcast room of "northeast rain sister", an internet celebrity with millions of fans, and sent it for inspection; the test report showed that no sweet potatoes were detected in the samples. ingredients, while cassava ingredients were detected. on september 20, they had verbal and physical conflicts with the "northeast rain sister" team.

both sides disagree on the specific conflict; however, for the majority of consumers, what is more important is whether there is anything wrong with the sweet potato vermicelli sold in the "northeast rain sister" live broadcast room.

@bountyhunterashes, @大wa video screenshots

suspicion of falsification of ingredient list

regarding the ingredients of vermicelli, reports provided by anti-counterfeiting bloggers, statements from manufacturers, and product ingredient lists vary.

the packaging shows that the ingredient list of this product is: sweet potato starch, drinking water, and edible alum.

the report produced by anti-counterfeiting bloggers showed that the cassava gene was detected in the product, but the sweet potato gene was not detected.

in a telephone interview with ifeng technology, the manufacturer of vermicelli responded that it was mixed with tapioca starch, but it was impossible not to have sweet potato starch.

at present, the market supervision bureau of chaoyang county, chaoyang city, liaoning province has intervened in the investigation, but the official investigation results have not yet been released.

inspection report released by anti-counterfeiting blogger | weibo @bountyhunterashes

not to mention that the manufacturer's statement is inconsistent with the report produced by the blogger. even if it is true that the manufacturer claims that it is sweet potatoes mixed with tapioca starch, is it okay?

adding tapioca starch without labeling it in the ingredient list involves adulteration and fraud, and violates the food safety law, the consumer rights protection law and many other laws.

according to the national "general principles for the labeling of prepackaged foods", food ingredients should be listed in the ingredient list in descending order of added amount. there are ingredients that do not need to be declared in the ingredient list (below). but the tapioca starch in this case is not included.

which ingredients do not need to be labeled?

1. when the excipients contained in food additives do not play a functional role in the final product, they do not need to be declared in the ingredient list. example: solvents contained in food flavors in beverages.

2. processing aids: used to assist processing, leaving no or only a very small amount of residue in the finished product. example: diatomaceous earth as a filter aid.

3. enzyme preparations that have lost their activity in the final product. example: enzyme preparations added to bread dough will become inactive after baking.

careless

no one told me that fraud can be detected?

the manufacturer of the vermicelli said in an interview with phoenix technology: "i saw (the news) today. that thing is unrealistic. it can detect cassava and sweet potato. can you tell the difference?"

in fact, the testing method is not complicated, it is pcr (polymerase chain reaction) that i learned in high school biology. (my friends from high school may be sweating after seeing this. don’t panic, you won’t take the test in a nutshell.)

whether it is sweet potato or cassava raw materials, after being made into vermicelli, theirdna (fragments) will also remain in the vermicelli, and the genetic characteristics of the two are different.

if you want to detect whether it contains sweet potato, you need to prepare "primers" that will combine with sweet potato characteristic fragments; the primers will combine with sweet potato dna and replicate in large quantities through pcr until it is detected.

if a sample does not contain sweet potatoes, the primers for sweet potato detection cannot find the target dna, and no dna will be copied during pcr.

different pcr primers are used in the detection of sweet potatoes and cassava | "method for identification of edible starch plant source components"

pcr detection technology is very sensitive, even if the sample contains only a few tenths of a percent of the target component, it can still be detected. you can also handle cooked samples such as vermicelli or cooked food.

however, it also has the disadvantage that it can only detect one type of target dna at a time, and the detection of sweet potatoes and cassava must be carried out separately. pcr is usually only used qualitatively rather than quantitatively in the detection of plant and animal sources.the test report is detected/not detected, rather than specific content.

inspection report released by anti-counterfeiting blogger | weibo @bountyhunterashes

you may still recall that many news revealed that duck meat was used as beef and mutton in hot pot and skewers. testing the animal origin of meat products also uses pcr detection technology.

in september last year, it was revealed that chaodao hotpot, a subsidiary of banu group, contained duck meat in the high-calcium mutton rolls used in its stores. banu group sent store samples for inspection, and the test results confirmed that the mutton rolls contained duck meat. the chaoyang district municipal supervision bureau of beijing fined him 420,000 yuan and confiscated 20,000 yuan of illegal income.

picture source | wechat public account@banumaoduhotpot

why fake it? it’s not just for money.

in fact, this is not the first time that fraud involving cassava vermicelli being passed off as sweet potato vermicelli has been discovered. as early as the march 15 party in 2022, cctv exposed that many vermicelli manufacturers in yuzhou used cassava starch and a small amount of corn starch to make "sweet potato vermicelli". it's just that that party also had an even more outrageous "sauerkraut in the pit", so everyone may not have a deep impression.

cctv.com quick video screenshot

at that time, cctv reported that the price of cassava starch was less than 2 yuan per catty, and the price of sweet potato starch was about 4 yuan per catty. the price difference was more than double.

we may rarely eat cassava directly in our lives, but tapioca starch is very common: the pearls in pearl milk tea use tapioca starch as the main raw material. some friends have seen that raw cassava is poisonous and are worried about whether cassava vermicelli is poisonous vermicelli. in fact, there is no need to worry. in the process of making cassava starch, multiple processes such as soaking, heating, and air-drying have already removed the toxins in cassava. in terms of nutrition, although cassava vermicelli and sweet potato vermicelli have slightly different tastes, they are both starch-based foods and have very similar nutritional values.

“internet celebrity” fame is not an endorsement of quality

the reputation of "internet celebrity" cannot be used as an endorsement of product quality. just because someone talks about a product for several minutes doesn't mean they understand it. many internet celebrity teams are hastily established, with few professionals to review the products, or they simply deliberately skirt around the edges. the "hong kong meicheng mooncake" incident of three sheep is still before our eyes.

large supermarket chains such as walmart and hema are relatively more reliable. they have a dedicated team or cooperate with a third party to audit and inspect suppliers. the audit content includes supplier licenses, product inspection reports, factory quality management systems, etc. the probability of "rollover" is much smaller than that of some internet celebrity teams.

having said that, product quality control cannot rely 100% on the review of the sales chain, let alone the discernment of consumers. it is also a top priority for manufacturers to comply with laws and regulations and for strict supervision by relevant departments.